A critical look at Romania’s perfect start

2-0 vs Estonia, 4-0 vs Andorra and Victor Piturca looks like a happy man. “I’d give my boys a 10!”, said the coach after the win from Tallin and, surprisingly, went further after tonight’s success, offering a 10+. It makes sense only if you think that, before the game, he was happy with a 1-0 win against Andorra (please don’t pay too much attention to the FIFA rankings!), but who saw the match and the struggle to open up a crowded defense would beg to differ.

Romania made only one change to the starting eleven used in Tallinn, with the injured Goian making space for Gaman in central defense, a sign that Piturca isn’t even thinking to work on a plan B. He’s totally focused on making his counter-attacking 4-2-3-1 system work that he’s not using games like this one to prepare an attacking setup for the inevitable moments when Romania will be one or two goals down…

Obviously, the team struggled to score against a very poor team: hazard played a good part in the first two goals, the third came after a set-play and involved an unlucky deflection from Andorra’s keeper, while the last was a brilliant piece of individual skill from Alexandru Maxim… on a counter. We’ve wasted tens of crosses and around 20 corner kicks, which only showed Marica’s problems to use hight balls coming from the flanks and the supporting trio formed by Tanase, Grozav and Torje provided a clumsy overall performance. Torje was lively on the right and scored again, with a nice left footed shot, but he works too much on his own (ignoring the supporting full-back), while his service is often useless. Grozav has some nice touches, but is too inconsistent and runs the wrong channels, while Tanase was very poor, looking very predictable in movement and uninspired when on the ball, getting a very hostile treatment from the angered fans. I could also write a couple of lines about Bourceanu and how limited is Steaua’s anchorman, but I don’t like to repeat myself :-)

Nevertheless, Piturca is happy and I’ll explain why: for him, it was vital to notch these wins against teams that would have played like Romania intends to play versus the group’s favorites. He was disappointed to hear that Estonia failed to cause problems for Turkey, but he’s secretly hoping that Turkey won’t take all the points in Tallinn. Where both Hungary and Holland might make a “faux pas” and he’s dreaming to frustrate all these higher rated teams when playing against them with a similar approach to Estonia’s, but with a touch more of technical quality and tactical knowledge…

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I find the biggest problem being the mentality Piturca inspires his players, which I find is a coward mentality,a game based on fear of losing,rather than will of winning. I remember Mircea Badea joking about the national team and saying that they are never able to turn a game around, even if the team is Trinidad and Tobago in the lead…and I find this to be the truth,unfortunately. I think this has to do with this fear of losing and letting in a goal or two…no wonder you suck when you don’t believe you can win. I mean,what message are you sending your players when you say “I am satisfied with 1-0″…come on,you are playing with amateurs…and if the coach says a thing like that,how can we expect more from the players.

I find Piturca biased,using useless players like Tanase and unfit players like Lobont and Marica,when on the bench you’ve got talented players that want to show themselves (I am thinking of Maxim,Popa,Voiculet) and using a useless system,that doesn’t fit the players at all. Also,it seems like Piturca has lost the respect of the players…when they seem more into their hair styles rather than running and working hard on the field.

I wish a coach like Petrescu would take over the team, I can imagine his workoholic personality form a hard-working,dedicated squad that’s focused on winning and playing effective. Or someone like Grigoras to take charge, how different his mentality is and how he could use Romania’s technical players doing what they are made to do,attacking and not defending.

Radu Baicu

• 10 years of continuous work in scouting, for top clubs and companies;
• Worked for clubs like Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Hannover 96, monitorring the Romanian market;
• Worked for Birmingham based company 'The Scouting Network' (www.tsn.co.uk) as a football scout;
• Worked for Zurich based company Boutique Football as a scouting network coordinator;
• International scout for Young Boys Bern for 2 years, covering Eastern European football.
• Currently working as an international scout for a top French club, covering Eastern European football.